GO Unique @ Raffles City • Creative Twists Make Favourite Comfort Dishes Better 有间不一样

GO Unique | 252 North Bridge Rd, B1-12 Raffles City Shopping Centre, Singapore 🚆 City Hall station ☎ 6935 8323 🕚 11am - 9:30pm (close at 10pm on Fri & Sat)

Raffles City is chocked full of interesting, and constantly refreshed mid-range pricing restaurant concepts - it's a destination for adventurous and curious foodies who want to experience new ideas. GO Unique recently opened in Raffles City, so we went to try them (as we have tried and like GO Noodle House in Malaysia and Singapore before).

GO Unique is an offshoot of the popular GO Noodle House which has many outlets in Malaysia including JB and in Singapore. GO Unique has an outlet in Kuala Lumpur and this in Singapore.

GO Unique goes beyond noodles.

Going beyond GO Noodle House's popular noodle dishes, GO Unique has rice dishes, bakes, etc. For example, this Lap Mei Rice in claypot which I like.

There were four type of toppings, namely, 腊肠 lup cheong, 润肠 yun cheong (liver sausage), 腊肉 lup yok (wax meat) and 桂花肉 gui fa pork. It's a blend of different layers and intensities of savoury flavours.

The lap mei rice dish is made with three types of rice - Thai Jasmine rice, glutinous rice and a low starch long grain rice. Each type of rice gave every mouthful an interesting mix of flavours and textures. The nutty long grain rice stood out, along with the slightly charred crisp rice crust.

The different toppings, and types of rice are cooked together with lup cheong essence, soy sauce blend and shaoxing wine to create the delicious dish. Even though GO Unique is a chain restaurant, their lap mei claypot rice compares favourably even with Singapore's top claypot rice specialists.

GO Unique also has the chicken and salted fish version of claypot rice which I want to try next time.

Next rice dish, their signature Rice in Broth which is a type of pao fan (soaked puffed rice dish). GO's signature 12-types-of-fish-bone savoury sweet fish bone broth was poured into our pot of boiled rice, topped with a large minced pork patty and stalks of greens.

Then add toasted puff rice. The pork patty and also the fish broth has tong cai 冬菜 (preserved cabbage) which added its umami and unique flavour. This is a delicious mini pao fan which one (big eater) person can finish 😅

Savoury sweet flavour and different textures from soft tender to crisp, GO Unique knows how to play with flavours and textures using available and affordable ingredients.

Double Pork Combo Noodles.

Thick rice noodles in GO's savoury sweet fish broth with "bursting pork ball" made with Spanish pork belly.

We added two shots of optional Shaoxing wine to our noodles 🤭

I love these slippery smooth thick bee hoon that picked up the savoury sweet flavours of the fish broth so well.

Even though I have eaten broth filled dumplings, buns and pork / fish balls countless times, the warm rush of savoury flavours from GO Unique's pork ball still got me 👍

Hakka Sauce Pan Mee topped with century egg, minced pork, fried anchovies, black fungus, shallot, scallion and parsley.

To me, this dish is really about the lardy sauce. The noodles made fresh in-house daily were tender and the umami savoury lardy sauce makes it comparable to even the famous Hakka noodle in Seremban.

Bak Kwa & Floss Toasted Bun. BBQ pork bak kwa, chicken & pork floss with crispy bean curd skin, cucumber slices and chili sauce sandwiched between halves of a butter toasted fluffy bun.

One of the signature drinks at Go Unique is hor ka sai. What's that?

GO Unique uses the name 好架势 which in Cantonese means very previleged or high status. Another name is 虎咬狮 tiger bite lion in Hokkien. From northern Peninsula Malaysia, the origin of the drink and its fancy names are a mystery - I explored it here 👈 click

Whatever it is, GO Unique's hor ka sai is Nanyang coffee (Robusta) with milk tea and chocolate (cocoa powder). Served in a rustic style vacuum flask, it can be drank hot or cold with ice.

Ours was just a small sampling of GO Unique's extensive menu. I like what I tasted. All were familiar dishes with well considered tweaks in presentation, ingredients and taste profiles which were all appealing. Definitely can consider GO Unique for affordable, filling and satisfying lunch and dinner when in Singapore CBD (Central Business District).